Alan,

Very informative.  Thanks.

Care to pass on any recommendations for CM's?

Cheers,
-Neil.



On Tuesday 22 March 2005 08:09 am, alan smith scribbled:
> We have used CM's that are very small shops to the
> very large.  IN all cases, the first boards thru,
> complex or not, require you to hold thier hands in
> order to make sure it gets done right.  Once they have
> a process down, its usually pretty much...build me 100
> of these units.
>
> Small CM's will sub the board out, even get them from
> overseas if qty is enough or build themselves (if they
> are a large CM that is...one of ours is)
>
> Testing.  If you want them to test, then its going to
> be a cost adder.  They typically will want the test
> setup (we provide the test jig) and depending on the
> design, rework can sometimes be easier at the CM
> facility (large BGA's are usually not for the faint of
> heart).  If you can deal with rework yourself for
> failed boards then the cost burdon comes back to you.
>
> Parts - jelly bean parts (normal caps and resistors
> that is) they typically bought in reels by the
> thousands and can reduce costs.  Special parts,
> modules, chips, etc are usually (unless HUGE qty) not
> purchased any cheaper than what you can but they have
> full control over the buying process.  To elaborate,
> if you have a part, its better to negotiate the price
> with the vendor yourself then make sure that the CM
> will buy it at that price.  We have seen where a part
> has been nogotiated by a CM customer for lets say
> $2ea, but our price is $2.25 for the same part. Why?
> Even tho the CM is using thousands of this part, the
> price was negotiated for the other client, not us.
> That was a surprise actually.
>
> Best advice? If you can use a local CM its better
> since you will have issues on first runs and also
> during larger runs.  Visit the line, look at some of
> the work they are doing, ask permission to talk to
> other customers, get a good feel of the process.  If
> they refuse to allow you to see the line, etc....might
> think twice about using them (what are they hiding).
>
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